Community Radios for Sustainable Development Goals

Community Radio—truly considered the medium of the people, by the people and for the people, has a significant role to play in communicating and furthering the Sustainable Development Goals. The community media becomes more important during a crisis situation, like the one we are facing today following the outbreak of COVID-19.

The Webinar series on ‘SDG Toolkit for Community Radios – Communicating the Sustainable Development Goals from the Perspective of COVID-19’,  launched jointly by UNESCO New Delhi and Seeking Modern Applications for Real Transformation (SMART), aims at initiating a dialogue on significance of the SDGs for communities in the times of COVID.

On 3 June, Eric Falt, Director and Representative, UNESCO New Delhi kick-started the series with his remarks on the crucial role of community radios (CRs) in creating awareness in terms of access to information and knowledge, enabling community participation and facilitating an active development process.   Archana Kapoor from SMART and Pinky Chandran from Radio Active, the key figures behind development of the toolkit, took the discussion forward and spoke about the relevance of toolkit in effective programming during the health crisis. The launch webinar saw participation from 125 community media practitioners.